Thomas Tallis and the five-part English Litany of 1544: evidence of 'the notes used in the kings majestys chapel

The earliest documented polyphonic settings of a liturgical text in the English vernacular were a small group of unidentified Litanies, one of which, stated to have been for five voices, was published on 26 June 1544. Not one printed copy of that Litany is now known to be extant, the records of its issue have received but patchy notice in the historiography of English Reformation music, and beyond the odd passing reference no attention has been given to the all-too-obvious possibility that the setting contained in the lost print was none other than the celebrated five-part Litany by Thomas Tallis. Though no prints or manuscripts of Tallis's Litany survive from earlier than the 1630s, a text-critical study of the extant sources strongly suggests that their common original source was a printed one, while the make-up of Tallis's cantus firmus and a small but significant anomaly of liturgical structure imply that his setting pre-dates not only the well-known monophonic setting issued on or before 16 June 1544 (STC 10621.5, 10621.7 and 10622), but also the first publication of the vernacular text on 27 May (STC 10620 and 10621). Given Tallis's pre-eminence among court musicians, and the absence from the sources of any other contemporary settings demonstrably in five parts, the chances seem slight indeed that the polyphonic setting printed in 1544 was the work of any other composer.

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